There's a lot of shit said about shoez. Here's the short version once you get done reading everyone's opinions on RC.com. Get thee to thy nearest climbing shoppe and try on shoez till you are sick of hearing about it. Get the most snug fit you can get without crying. Some shoez will stretch out and some do not. Research that as well. For some damned reason, my boy, who has larger feet than me, can tolerate a smaller size. Thus, as this illustrates, to say that your results may vary is a big understatement.

LaSortiva shoes tend to fit me best. I come from Eurotrash stock though and those tend to be Italian shoes. The ugly LaSportivas I bought in Paris 8 years back have been resoled 6 times. Usually with Evolv rubber. However, I own well over 15 pairs of shoes now. I'm the Ismelda Marcos of climbing shoes bitchez. So don't feel that the only paid you buy will be the only pair you'll own. Pretty soon you'll get high tops, bouldering shoes, velcro slippers, more lace ups......no way to avoid it that I can see. Anytime I can get a pair for $40 I buy them for practicing and gym climbing. Full resoles with rands cost that much so that's my policy. You close out a shoe that I think will fit me I'm buying it if it's $40 or less.

I appreciate the thanks and am glad to have helped. Shoes ain't cheap (my LaSportiva TC Pros were $122!), so it's nice to get that right the first time.

PS, as a followup to that, as you search on which shoes climbers believe is best, you will also see them argue about rubber all day long. I suspect any modern rubber would work great for you. I like 5.10 (Stealth C4) and Evolv the best. However, what is crazy is that last May I took my 2 pairs of LaSportivas to Yosemite and with one on each foot, tried to see what shoe would slip first on a sloper. I had expected that the old Evolv resoled Sportiva would be best in grip. I was wrong. The new TC Pros with what I had considered inferior Vibram soles had a microslight edge in performance when placed on the same hold. I tried multiple holds, and it seemed to be true on almost all.

Despite having empirical evidence bitchslap me directly in the face that the Vibram was superior (even if ever so slightly) to Evolv rubber, I haven't changed my view that it isn't as good. Despite it knowingly flying in the face of the actual truth. You'll see this all the time with other climbers and their beliefs on which rubber they "believe" is best as well. So keep that in mind when you see me say that C4 and Evolv rubber is the best, despite the fact that I'll argue that they are till I'm blue in the face. I know 2 others with the TC Pros that had them resoled when they were first bought, brand new, for this very reason.